Posts Tagged ‘Taoism’

If the answers to all the big questions of existence were easy to come by everybody would know them. There’s good reason why so few hold the most profound secrets of life. Let’s face it, the path to enlightenment is undeniably a tough and arduous slog. Those deciding to pursue the weighty issues of our intrinsic Being better strap in for a rocky ride filled with perplexing concepts, torturous reason, an avalanche of bewildering language and endless acres of convoluted conundrums. Of course, just because the task is formidable doesn’t mean there aren’t many willing to give enlightenment a shot. For such ambitious souls there’s no end of revered spiritual systems to hitch one’s fate. While almost all spiritual or wisdom traditions specialize in the esoteric, obscure and impenetrable one in particular raises the levels of confusion, mystification and befuddlement to vertiginous heights. This asylum of contradiction is the fusion of Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism commonly known as Zen. Those of saner disposition steeped in logic and reason best turn back now.

From the onset of the written record it’s apparent many have considered music a form of sacred expression. Regardless of form or instrumentation, the relation of music to the ultimate forces of existence figures prominently within every culture and permeates our shared history. Those more profoundly affected claim music to be the embodiment of the Divine. Many of greater circumspection may conceive of music as merely a representation of the divine or, if less theistically inclined, the reflection of some kind of cosmic existential order. Semantics and nuance aside, music has always been idealized as a medium through which the higher forces driving existence may be known. This lofty concept has long been propagated, formalized and exploited by powerful spiritual institutions in whose trust the sacred remained.